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Robert Huddle

Read more about the article Captain Robert Huddle’s logbook: the epilogue

Captain Robert Huddle’s logbook: the epilogue

This rather melancholy epilogue to the logbook of Captain Robert Huddle - excerpts of which I have transcribed in other posts - finds the old seaman washed ashore in England, "a chronic invalid" on "a petty pension". The volume ends with a pasted-in photo of his residence in London in the year 1901: 63 Ravendsale Road, Stamford Hill. I have looked on Google Earth, and the building looks almost the same today. Robert Huddle's home in London, 1901. As the beginning to the end of this narrative I have attempted to set out in the preparatory…

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Read more about the article Bringing home the SS Brisbane

Bringing home the SS Brisbane

The SS Brisbane was a passenger, cargo and mail ship, built by A&J Inglis of Glasgow and launched in 1874. It was owned by the Eastern & Australian Mail Steamship Co Ltd, which had a contract to carry mail between Queensland and Singapore, to connect with the P&O mail service from England. On 10 October 1881 it ran aground on Fish Reef near Quail Island, not far from Darwin, while on its way from Hong Kong. No lives were lost, but the ship was a wreck. The wreck remains today as a historic site. This account,…

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Read more about the article The logbook of Captain Robert Huddle
Robert Huddle's watercolour of the Royal Mail Steamer Scotia, one of the ships on which he worked.

The logbook of Captain Robert Huddle

A year or two ago I was privileged to receive a remarkable book from the library of a friend who had passed away. It is a hefty bound volume, containing a logbook of the travels of a 19th century English seafarer named Robert Huddle. The book contains an introductory essay, day-by-day accounts of many of his voyages and experiences, and a concluding essay. The book is handwritten in ink, and its pages are interspersed with delightful watercolour paintings depicting some of the ships on which Mr Huddle worked and scenes he observed during his travels. I…

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